At the Russ College of Engineering and Technology, our students, faculty and staff work together applying our talents and knowledge to improve the human condition and make a sustainable mark on the world.
The Classroom and Beyond
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Academic & Research Center
The Russ College’s 100,000-square-foot Academic & Research Center (ARC) and historic Stocker Center are the heart of our academic life. Pull up a chair in the ARC, designed to support the way modern students work, study and live. Completed in 2010 in partnership with the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, the ARC is an open-design building offering learning studios, project team rooms, and research labs that encourage collaboration and community.
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Research
The Russ College leads world-class studies in avionics engineering as well as in three strategic research areas: air and ground transportation infrastructure, energy and the environment, and bioengineering. And we make sure our students learn beyond the classroom by offering meaningful research opportunities in our ongoing projects.
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Research Facilities
Research takes place in labs across campus and town. Each facility, from the Russ Research Opportunity Center, to the Francis J. Fuller Aviation Training Center, to the 30-foot mobile Civil Infrastructure Lab, to the towering Institute for Corrosion and Multiphase Technology with its inclinable flow loop, is equipped with state-of-the-art technology to help us – and you – make an impact that lasts forever.
Cultivating Excellence
The faculty, staff, and students of Russ College strive to cultivate excellence in themselves and others.
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Robe Leadership InstituteLeadership is the hallmark of a Russ College graduate. In the T. Richard and Eleanora K. Robe Leadership Institute, students learn how they can guide the future of engineering and technology -- and of society as a whole.
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Prominent FacultyOur faculty members are forever creating by innovating practical applications of their extensive research and educating the next generation of engineers and technologists. Our world-class researchers are leading our classrooms, cultivating a culture of student collaboration and academic excellence.
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Engineering AmbassadorsThe Engineering Ambassadors program offers students an opportunity to develop networking skills and to serve the college. Selected by their programs and other Ambassadors, these students represent our programs to future students, alumni, and industry partners.
A Lasting Impact
Russ College is the namesake of Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ, who were committed to supporting the profession of engineering because of their belief in its ability to improve the human condition. The Russes left a legacy that benefits our students and our college in countless ways.
Russ Endowment
After he graduated from Ohio University with a bachelor’s in electrical engineering in 1942, Fritz Russ, and his wife, Dolores, founded one of the nation's leading electronic and automation corporations, Systems Research Laboratories. Making their first gift to OHIO in 1963 with $25, the Russes left a transformational $124 million estate gift in 2008 to the Russ College. With unparalleled resources to educate future generations of engineers and technologists, the Russ College holds the largest endowment of any college at Ohio University.
Russ Prize
Awarded biennially by the National Academy of Engineering and Ohio University, the Russ Prize recognizes a bioengineering achievement in widespread use that improves the human condition. Established in 1999, the $500,000 Russ Prize encourages collaboration between the engineering, medical and biological disciplines and professions.
Russ Vision Scholarships
Made possible with the transformational $124 million Russ estate gift of 2008, Russ Vision Scholarships were created to encourage students to join in our commitment to make a lasting impact. They’re awarded to students who will benefit from these unique resources and who will contribute to the Russ College environment and community by sharing their talents and skills.
History of the Russ College of Engineering and Technology
The Russ College has been breaking ground throughout our history. After Ohio University was chartered in 1804 – the first land-grant college in the Northwest Territory transferred to the United States in 1783 – surveying courses were offered to early students of the nascent institution.
Formal civil engineering courses first appeared at Ohio University before the Civil War, and four-year electrical engineering courses of study began here in 1890 — one of the first higher education institutions in the country to offer them.
Our technology program dates back to 1904, when "manual training" was offered as a summer course. In 1914, the department of industrial arts was formed. We offered our first industrial technology bachelor's degree in 1956 and eventually established the modern Department of Engineering Technology and Management.
When Ohio University reorganized in 1935, it established the College of Applied Science, which would later become the College of Engineering in 1963. By 1939, we were producing both civil and electrical engineering graduates and, with the advent of flight training in 1940, aviation pioneers who helped build our country's infrastructure and industry following the Great Depression and into the second World War.
Following the industrial demand of the postwar years, mechanical engineering became a department in 1947 offering an optional program in industrial engineering. Industrial and systems engineering eventually became an independent department twenty years later.
We were on the cutting edge again offering computer programming courses in 1958 and established a distinct degree program in computer science by 1968.
Following an $8 million bequest from Paul C. and Beth K. Stocker in 1979, renovations to the former Crook Hall dormitory on West Green began in 1982, and all the campus engineering education and research facilities were brought under one roof in Stocker Center in 1986.
The college was renamed in 1994 to honor devoted alumni Fritz J. Russ (BSEE '46, HON '75) and his wife, Dolores H. Russ, who bequeathed a transformational $124 million gift to the college. Their dedication to the profession of engineering, their belief in its ability to change lives, and their generosity allow us to educate future engineers who work toward the greater good.
In 2010, the Russ College and the Ohio University Heritage College of Medicine unveiled the Academic & Research Center, a state-of-the-art learning and research facility built with private funding from the Osteopathic Heritage Foundations and alumni Charles R. (BSME '66, HON '05) and Marilyn Y. Stuckey. The building features modern learning studios and project rooms, connected laboratory suites, a three-story project hangar and an atrium living room with movable furniture, encouraging collaboration between the medical and engineering fields.
We continue our legacy of firsts as the only engineering and technology college to clearly identify our purpose as engineers and technologists. Our students, faculty, and staff apply our talents and knowledge to work together to improve the human condition and make a sustainable mark on the world.
